Tag Archives: fcp-x

I have been editing with Adobe Premiere since around 1994. I took a rather long break from Premiere between 2001 and 2011 and switched over to Apple and Final Cut Pro which in many ways used to be very similar to Premiere (I think some of the same software writers were used for FCP as Premiere). My FCP edit stations were always muti-core Mac Towers. The old G5’s first then later on the Intel Towers. Then along came FCP-X. I just didn’t get along with FCP-X when it first came out. I’m still not a huge fan of it now, but will happily concede that FCP-X is a very capable, professional edit platform.

So in 2011 I switch back to Adobe Premiere as my edit platform of choice. Along the way I have also used various versions of Avid’s software, which is another capable platform.

But right now I’m really not happy with Premiere. Over the last couple of years it has become less stable than it used to be. I run it on a MacBook Pro which is a well defined hardware platform, yet I still get stability issues. I’m also experiencing problems with gamma and level shifts that just shouldn’t be there. In addition Premiere is not very good with many long GOP codecs. FCP-X seems to make light work of XAVC-L compared to Premiere. Furthermore Adobe’s Media encoder which once used to be one of the first encoders to get new codecs or features is now lagging behind, Apples Compressor now has the ability to do at he full range of HDR files. Media Compressor can only do HDR10. If you don’t know, it is possible to buy Compressor on it’s own.

Meanwhile DaVinci Resolve has been my grading platform of choice for a few years now. I have always found it much easier to get the results and looks that I want from Resolve than from any edit software – this isn’t really a surprise as after all that’s what Resolve was originally designed for.

DaVinci Resolve a great grading software and it’s edit capabilities are getting better and better.

The last few versions of Resolve have become much faster thanks to some major processing changes under the hood and in addition there has been a huge amount of work on Resolves edit capabilities. It can now be used as a fully featured edit platform. I recently used Resolve to edit some simpler projects that were going to be graded as this way I could stay in the same software for both processes, and you know what it’s a pretty good editor. There are however a few things that I find a bit funky and frustrating in the edit section of Resolve at the moment. Some of that may simply be because I am less familiar with it for editing than I am Premiere.

Anyway, on to my point. Resolve is getting to be a pretty good edit platform and it’s only going to get better. We all know that it’s a really good and very powerful grading platform and with the recent inclusion of the Fairlight audio suite within Resolve it’s pretty good at handling audio too. Given that the free version of Resolve can do all of the edit, sound and grading functions that most people need, why continue to subscribe to Adobe or pay for FCP-X?

With the cost of the latest generations of Apple computers expanding the price gap between them and similar spec Windows machines – as well as the new Macbooks lacking built in ports like HDMI, USB3 that we all use every day (you now have to use adapters and dongles). The Apple eco system is just not as attractive as it used to be. Resolve is cross platform, so an Mac user can stay with Apple if they wish, or move over to Windows or Linux whenever they want with Resolve. You can even switch platforms mid project if you want. I could start an edit on my MacBook and the do the grade on a PC workstation staying with Resolve through the complete process.

Even if you need the extra features of the full version like very good noise reduction, facial recognition, 4K DCI output or HDR scopes then it’s still good value as it currently only costs $299/£229 which is less than a years subscription to Premiere CC.

But what about the rest of the Adobe Creative suite? Well you don’t have to subscribe to the whole suite. You can just get Photoshop or After Effects. But there are also many alternatives. Again Blackmagic Design have Fusion 9 which is a very impressive VFX package used for many Hollywood movies and like Resolve there is also a free version with a very comprehensive tools set or again for just $299/£229 you get the full version with all it’s retiming tools etc.

Blackmagic Designs Fusion is a very impressive video effects package for Mac and PC.

For a Photoshop replacement you have GIMP which can do almost everything that Photoshop can do. You can even use Photoshop filters within GIMP. The best part is that GIMP is free and works on both Mac’s and PC’s.

So there you have it – It looks like Blackmagic Design are really serious about taking a big chunk of Adobe Premiere’s users. Resolve and Fusion are cross platform so, like Adobe’s products it doesn’t matter whether you want to use a Mac or a PC. But for me the big thing is you own the software. You are not going to be paying out rather a lot of money month on month for something that right now is in my opinion somewhat flakey.

I’m not quite ready to cut my Creative Cloud subscription yet, maybe on the next version of Resolve. But it won’t be long before I do.

Sony have just released a plug-in for Apple’s Final Cut Pro X. The plugin allows you to work with HD and 4K XAVC material in FCP-X. As well as the plugin you will need to first update FCP-X to at least version 10.0.8. The handling of HD and 4K XAVC in FCP-X is very impressive with smooth 4K playback on my iMac and Retina MBP. It even handles scaling to HD for SDI output in real time with ease.